## Lambchop: Punching the Clown [Merge].
Graham TolbertHad Kurt Wagner not turned on the radio while driving late one night, Lambchop’s new album wouldn't exist in its current form. Desperate to find a beguiling track he heard somewhere between the dials, the bandleader accidentally discovered “lined out singing,” a type of call-and-response gospel popular with Scottish immigrants in Appalachia at the turn of the 20th century.
The format—a song leader starts the song, and the chorus rises up to meet them over the course of a verse—was developed out of necessity: not every parishioner could read, so the leader reminded everyone what came next.
But Wagner‘s decision to adopt the style on Punching the Clown was pure passion. Complete with a full choir helmed by Blake Morgan, the new LP does the form justice with its pared-back, thoughtfully observed ballads and modern hymns.
Listen on Apple MusicListen on SpotifyListen on TidalListen on Amazon MusicListen/Buy at BandcampBuy at Rough Trade.
Julia Holter’s minimalist and prismatic music has taken on many forms over the years: chamber pop, bossa nova, field recordings, Hindu devotionals. But what might it look like to apply this multifaceted mindset to a single song.
The Los Angeles songwriter’s latest, Materia, does just that. The title draws from a standout from 2024’s Something in the Room She Moves, a song she moulds into two distinct new versions: the fretless bass and clarinet symphony “Materia 2” and the slow, spare “Materia 3.” Materia, however, offers more than just fresh perspective on familiar territory (see: the titanic 10-minute solo improvisation “My Twin”).
Well over a decade into her career, Holter still has new sides to show, each more revelatory the last.
Herzsprung could so easily become leaden under the heft of all its attendant lore (Copenhagen’s Gustav Berntsen appears in a widely reviled Jaguar campaign, uses the money to hole up in a studio deep in the Swedish woods).
Or it could grow stiff and unyielding, lily-gilded with math rock riffs, odd time signatures, and lyrics scrapbooked together out of the pages of London’s Metro newspaper.
What’s remarkable, then, is how Berntsten’s AD 93 debut just breezes by—a balancing act he’s mastered alongside many of his fellow Danish esotericists. If you’ve ever wondered what late-era Arctic Monkeys would sound like if they got really into American Football (or you’re wondering that for the first time right now) this is the album for you.
Diamond*: Bling Bøi EP 2: Høsted by DJ Høliday [Hallwood/YSL/Atlantic].
It was only a matter of time before Diamond* celebrated the holiday season. The buzzy Atlanta rapper has emerged head-and-shoulders above a crowded underground landscape this year: with his ØWay crew and partner-in-slime Tezzus, and on a debut Bling Boi EP.
Now, he’s back with a sequel hosted by the one and only DJ Holiday, a badge of honor for anyone steeped in the hagiography of Gucci Mane. Bling Bøi EP 2 brings together a number of notable characters in the Diamond* extended universe, including Pradabagshawty and Pz’.
But make no mistake, this is a solo showcase through and through.
Westside Cowboy: It Goes On [Island].
There’s a wonderful lived-in quality to Manchester four-piece Westside Cowboy’s It Goes On, a rare feat for a debut. Sure, the alt-rockers are following a well-trod lineage, working with Geese producer Loren Humphrey and proving the influence of Pavement and the Pixies is alive and well.
But that natural-fade feel is more indebted to the band’s chemistry and comfortability, which makes their spin on some of the best-loved tricks in the book—deadpan delivery, big drum fills, driving single-chord riffs—sound original nonetheless.
Wild Pink: Still Coming Down [Fire Talk].
In the two years since John Ross released his last Wild Pink album, it hasn’t so much rained as poured. He was diagnosed with, then beat, cancer; he welcomed his first child; and, through it all, he retained (and sharpened) his observant and pathos-heavy songwriting style.
On Still Coming Down, Ross channels the perspective of this new stage of life into some of Wild Pink’s most ambitious arrangements thus far, clearly intended to be played loud and proud.
But don’t mistake this new scale for a rejection of the slouchy, distinctly suburban rock Ross has nailed down over the years. “There was not a ton of overthinking,” he said in a statement of the recording process.
Denzel Curry and Kenny Beats: II [Loma Vista].
Think after all these years, Denzel Curry and Kenny Beats (sorry, Kenneth Blume) have the easygoing rapport of two old friends? Think again. “We’ve started every project on opposite sides of a coin and fought our way to the center,” Blume has said of the pair’s newest collaboration, II.
But that leaves all the more room for their fighting spirit to take hold and propel the record into some of their most sharp-elbowed, engaging tracks yet. JPEGMAFIA, Westside Gunn, and Yebba hop in for some mediation, but II is at its best when it feels like a 1v1 brawl.
Before Brandon Flowers wrote the biggest white-guy anthem since “Bohemian Rhapsody,” he was just a boy growing up in Nephi, Utah. These humble roots are back in the mix on his first solo album in a decade, Thrasher.
Plenty of established male musicians have gone country before but how many of them count David Rawlings and Nashville harmonica legend Charlie McCoy as featured guests.
Flowers’ pivot may be all in on one end of the human-dancer continuum, but it never comes off as a cash grab.
Black Marble: Life in Small Spaces [Sacred Bones].
On Chris Stewart’s latest album as Black Marble, the Brooklyn producer handles vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, drum programming, synths, windchimes, tambourine, and piano.
Unsurprisingly, an artist who does so much of it themselves has a thought or too about the evolution and atomization of the underground music scene, and Life in Small Spaces tackles working in the music industry with a healthy mix of realism and hope.
The Afghan Whigs: Soft Control [BMG].
The Afghan Whigs’ fourth album since reuniting and first in four years burrows back into the darkly majestic, soul-inspired alt-rock of their early years. Titled after a David Bowie quote about the process of becoming oneself, Soft Control reckons with religious zealots, power, and mortality, spearheaded by the coarse rumination of disaffected sage Greg Dulli.
Rapsody: God Gotta Afro & Gold Hoops [Roc Nation].
Rapsody joined forces with executive producer Mr. Porter for her 16-track follow-up to 2024’s Please Don’t Cry. Described as a “walk through Africa” and mostly recorded across the continent, God Gotta Afro & Gold Hoops playfully spins the North Carolina artist’s blend of intercontinental, intergenerational rap styles into music that flits between funk, Afrobeat, R&B, and hallucinatory hip-hop.
This is what it sounds like when God’s children see the creator in their reflection. It looks like love.” George Clinton and Clipse’s Malice are among the guests.
Plum: Bodies in Motion [self-released].
Chicago trio Plum are as indebted to the foundations of post-punk as they are the vibrant idiosyncrasies of new wave. On their sophomore album, Bodies in Motion, all three members—guitarist Jeff Kelley, bassist Heather Perry, and drummer Eric Ridder—move with light feet and pointed elbows, contorting and bending their way through new shapes until it constitutes a dance move.
From the punchy shuffle of “Asymmetric” to the dizzying spirals of “Too Much Sunlight,” Plum’s record is as much a call to join the art kids on the dance floor as it is an invitation to reimagine what it looks like to move your body free from judgement.
Jorja Smith: What Are the Odds [FAMM].
It’s been 10 years since Jorja Smith introduced her smoky alto to the world on her breakout single ”Blue Lights,“ and she’s been doing her British music history homework since then.
Her new album, produced by longtime collaborator P2J, draws on hyperlocal genres such as garage, grime, 2-step, and UK funky while maintaining a through line of silky, intimate dance pop.
With features from Wizkid and grime stalwart Devlin, it’s a love letter to her scene that never leans into nostalgia bait.
Weezer: Weezer (The Gold Album) [Warner].
They can’t keep getting away with this…or can they? Weezer are back with their seventh self-titled album, and this one is dipped in gold. Despite Rivers Cuomo and crew’s questionable forays in recent years, The Gold Album reveals they still have some bite behind their bark.
(A Wednesday guest spot with Karly Hartzman deadpanning at the bottom of her register “Is it still hedonism if I'm miserable?” has that slacker rock je ne sais quoi.) That’s partially thanks to Kenneth Blume, who produced the LP and said he set out to make “the most violent Weezer album ever.”.
Fontes
Informação baseada em material público de Pitchfork, reescrito pela redação ULTRA NOTÍCIAS.
